Personal stories

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Memories of the war years contribute to our understanding of an episode which would produce countless individual stories in many different languages, from both allied and axis sides, from the heart of the conflict or the distance of home, set down in diaries and letters, published as books, captured in images and rewritten for screen - or simply told, one-to-one, as reminiscences shared. Seventy-five years afterwards, these stories are still told, embargoed material continues to be sporadically released, and new interpretations emerge.

Andrew Coroneo

Andrew Coroneo was born in Armidale, NSW, his parents coming from the Island of Kythera, Greece in the early 1900's when very young. After the war he lived in Vaucluse attending Vaucluse Public and Randwick Boys' High Schools, then Sydney University. He worked as a pharmacist and later owned a ...

Peter Poland

Peter Poland joined the Royal Navy as a Cadet, in January, 1946. As a Lieutenant, he served 2 1/4 years with the Royal Australian Navy returning to England in 1957 married to a 6th generation Australian. In 1968, he commanded the frigate HMS Zest which visited Sydney. Leaving the Royal ...

Robin Hutcheon

The war years brought marine engineer Robert Hutcheon and his family to Sydney, where his Shanghai-born son Robin completed his education and took the first steps in a 40-year career in journalism. Based in Hong Kong from 1953 with the China Mail and then the South China Morning Post, Robin ...